Offshore Business Process Outsourcing - Staying Competitive v Risk?

As the Information Systems Offshoring and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) phenomena continue to grow and gain popularity, it is becoming increasingly evident that there is a need to consider a combination of the two, that is, Offshore BPO of IS Processes. This paper explores the factors that a multi-national organisation considered when it “offshored” its IS business processes to lower-cost destinations and focuses on determining the driving factors and challenges faced during the offshore sourcing project. A single, in-depth interpretive case study approach was used to explore this research topic. The results of this study show that the organisation under investigation was primarily driven to offshore its IS business processes in order to become more competitive in the marketplace. This was assisted by the organisation reducing its operational costs, and establishing a global presence in many lower-cost locations offshore. A substantive theoretical framework was developed, which illustrates the interrelationships that exist between these concepts.